Messages - Dana L.

Are you looking for an editor you can trust, who will care about your book's success and treat your writing with respect?

I love helping authors polish their book and get it ready to publish. In addition to carefully working on your book, I'll listen to you and give you valuable feedback. I am currently booking editing and proofreading for June, so contact me soon to get your spot!

Spring is just around the corner, and It's a great time to get your book proofread or edited and ready for the world to experience! I have an opening in my schedule and would love to chat with you about your project and do a free sample for you. Feel free to respond here, or you can visit my website: https://www.lee-clarityconsulting.com/

The new year is a great time to reflect and say thank you. It's been wonderful working with all of you on your amazing books this past year, and I am looking forward to helping you with your new projects in the coming year.

I invite you to contact me any time. I'm available to answer questions and to book your next proofreading or editing project.

In the past year I have been fortunate to work with many new clients, which has kept me very busy! I still have fast turn-around times, but suggest that you book in advance when possible.

It's the new year, and time to get your book ready to publish! With my ear for style, I will thoughtfully edit and proofread your manuscript or website, while maintaining your unique voice. I'm prompt, upbeat, and communicate well.

My affordable rates:Proofreading: $0.006 per wordCopy editing: $0.012 per wordIn-Depth editing: price quote given after reviewing a sample of the manuscript

I offer a free sample edit of your manuscript, so you can see my work. As always, in addition to my careful proofreading and editing, I'll explain my edits and give you my feedback on your book, giving you a sneak peek into a new reader's journey through your book, pointing out anything confusing, and letting you know what grabs and holds my interest.

If you have a book you'd like to get edited or proofread, please feel free to get in touch. I have a couple openings left for December. I'll do a sample chapter of your book for free with no obligation and answer any questions you may have. I love working with authors and will listen to you and your goals. I'm here to help you make your book what you know it can be!

Hey. Since you've already gotten feedback on the plot and concepts, I thought I'd let you know some wording and presentation tweaks I feel would help your blurb. By the way, it doesn't seem to me strange that she goes to school; the cataclysm just destroyed the magicians, not the normal world, right?

Here goes:

Aubrey Arthur seems like a normal twelve year-old girl, but she has a big secret. Aubrey comes from a long line of wizards, and her family is part of a hidden community of magicians, creatures of the night, and demigods, who have lived side-by-side with the non-magical world throughout recorded history.

A mysterious cataclysm wipes out most of the magic users in the world, including her parents and siblings, and Aubrey finds herself suddenly orphaned in a world with very little magic left in it. Living in her parents� big, empty house with nothing but a glitchy, mute golem and a basement full of inert mystical artifacts for company, Aubrey uses what little magic she has left to hide her situation from the normal world.

But Aubrey isn�t the only magic survivor of the cataclysm, and some of those other survivors soon show up. A fairy breaks into her house, and a horde of zombies attack her after school. And that's just the beginning.

When someone she thought was dead arrives on her doorstep, she realizes that the last source of magic left in the world may be hidden somewhere in her house. And Aubrey Arthur, a sixth grader with very little magical training, is the only one left who can defend it.

I think your first blurb is better. I do think it needed some tweaking, as I did in a previous post, but it' intriguing, it's more interesting, and doesn't have the end so well defined. The second blurb gives too much of the end away / sounds bland by saying "settled in their cabins... "

I don't mind running shoes at Christmas (people run all year many places), besides, I took it as a metaphor. But is she actually running up to the cabin? Or driving? She has the accident with the deer while on foot? Here's my version:

Mara Quinn has always been a runner. Running from her past. Running from her mistakes. With a storm of massive proportions brewing off the coast just before Christmas break, and reporters intent on discovering the ugly truth about the scandal she was involved in months earlier with a married senator, Mara is lacing up her running shoes. On the verge of losing her job and faced with the prospect of celebrating Christmas with no one but the herd of reporters on her front lawn, she heads up to The Hideaway, a secluded cabin where the reporters will never find her. An accident with a flying deer takes her off course and straight into the arms of her ruggedly handsome rescuer, Beau Chapman.

Beau is a good man in a storm, but the death of his wife three years ago left him feeling lost, avoiding life and love. The only thing he looks forward to is spending his Christmas vacation from The Herald at his cabin, writing his novel, with an endless supply of coffee and his dog Boomer. Once Beau recognizes Mara as the woman from the sexting scandal he uncovered, he realizes she's nothing at all like he imagined. She's smart and independent with a smile and joy about her that makes life worth living again. She's everything he dreamed of ... if he was willing to let himself dream again.

Can two weeks and the magic of Christmas be enough for them to find happiness and mend their broken hearts?

I like it! Nice. I really, really like the font of the words on the slider "Once I get them back from the pro artist." I can't help but wonder how it would look to use that font for the text you've changed from the "romance" font. I like the font you have now, though. Especially at the top of the home page where you have your mirth and magic phrase in lower case.

==============Chance Weston and John Hall arrive in a small town in the New Mexico Territory in the fall of 1876, looking for work. A gold rush has sent most of he young men to the north, and a family of toughs and their hired guns have run off many more.

Except for a few stragglers, the elderly, coal miners, cowhands passing through, and the abandoned womenfolk, it would be a ghost town. As it is, only the saloons and bordello flourish.

Quiet and resolved April, the choir director, and flamboyant and promiscuous May, the blackjack dealer, are as different inside as they are alike in appearance. Chance and John compete over who ought to win the affections of which lovely sister. One manís strict adherence to the law and the otherís disregard for his vows have put the two men at odds.

In the meantime, they must deal with town bullies, gunslingers, an adulteress Sunday School teacher, lynch mobs, a riderless horse, and an understaffed and inept town council that bends the law to its own purposed.

If they fail to put aside their differences and perform their duties, good people could be tarred and feathered at best, lynched at worst, and the town could be burned to the ground.

Your blurb interests me in your story. It is a little too long, and there are a few confusing sentences. Here's my tweaked version:

Chance Weston and John Hall arrive in a small town in the New Mexico Territory in the fall of 1876, looking for work. It might as well be a ghost town. A gold rush has sent most of the young men to the north, and a family of toughs and their hired guns have run off many more. All that remain are a few stragglers, the elderly, coal miners, cowhands passing through, and the abandoned womenfolk. As it is, only the saloons and bordello flourish.

Two sisters, quiet and resolved April, the choir director, and flamboyant and promiscuous May, the blackjack dealer, are as different inside as they are alike in appearance. Chance and John compete over who ought to win the affections of which lovely sister. One manís strict adherence to the law and the otherís disregard for his vows put the two men at odds.

In the meantime, they must deal with town bullies, gunslingers, an adulteress Sunday School teacher, lynch mobs, a riderless horse, and an understaffed and inept town council that bends the law to its own purposed.

If they fail to put aside their differences and perform their duties, good people could be tarred and feathered at best, lynched at worst, and the town burned to the ground.

How do I format the date/place label at the beginning of the prologue?

Sunday, August 28, 2005Lower Ninth Ward, New Orleans, Louisiana

Should I do it on two lines like that, or one? Bold, italic, left align, center, etc.? Is the comma the right way to separate the neighborhood from the town? I can't seem to get it to look right. The chapter heading is above the date/place.

I think those two phrases are about the same. I would tend to write it like I did in my first version of your blurb: "Blood and Water is about family... " I actually personally kind of like it the way you have it written now. It's not as edgy or raw as blurbs usually strive for. But I like books that are gentle and deep. If this vibe fits with your book, maybe it's fine the way you have it.

Tucson, Arizona is a place for runaways. Everyone you meet here came from somewhere else and has a story about what they left behind. Blood & Water tells these stories, following the deep connections between this unlikely group of friends.

Delilah arrives on her brother's doorstep with a secret. She hasn't seen him in five years. He ran away from their family long ago for reasons no one talks about and she still doesn't understand. The stress of raising his teenage daughter alone sometimes makes David envious of his deliberately childless friends, Tim and Sara, but they're runaways too. Tim left the only other person who remembers his mother the way he does and Sara ran from the burden of other people's expectations. Together they'll learn you can't run forever.

This novel is about family, in its various manifestations: the one you're born into, the one you choose and the one you create.

I think you need to use David's name sooner in the paragraph. "She hasn't seen him in five years. David ran away from their family... "

This version is better. I don't mind being introduced to that many characters. But, I think it's best to just state what's in the book without referencing the book's title, or at least avoid saying "this novel... ". It makes it sound like a book report, not an intriguing blurb.

I still very much like your ending, it makes me want to read your book.

I like the concept of the book from what you've written. The last sentence definitely draws me in.

Here are a few ideas / tweaks.

Maybe add a bit more why: Why is Delilah arriving on her brother's doorstep. Is she in crisis? Or just on a mission to tell him a secret, or she keeping secret from him? Describe her brother a bit more; just an adjective or two so we get a feel for him. Is he angry? Reclusive?

Tucson, Arizona is a place for runaways. Everyone you meet here came from somewhere else and has a story about what they left behind.

Delilah arrives on her brother's doorstep with a secret. She hasn't seen him in five years. He ran away from their family long ago for reasons no one talks about. When Delilah gets to know his friends, Tim and Sara, she realizes they have their own stories that create a deep connection between this unlikely group of friends.

Blood and Water is about family, in its various manifestations: the one you're born into, the one you choose and the one you create.

My advice as an editor is for you to ask your new editor to read one of the previous books in the series before editing the next book for you. This should give them a good view of the style so they can match it in their editing of the newer books. Let me know if I can ever be of help to you in this transition!

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